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martyb writes:

I suppose I should not have been surprised.

I got home from work a few days ago just as a performance by the New York Philharmonic of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World" came onto the radio. I actually had a break in my busy schedule and was able to listen to it uninterrupted from start to finish. I especially enjoy the introduction of certain 'passages' that reappear later as well as the tension as the piece builds to a huge fanfare.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and remarked on this in our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel. Not only did several people recognize it, there was a sudden discussion of people's favorite classical works and a suggestion that I should post a story to the main site.

Other favorites of mine include:

• 1812 Overture - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• The William Tell Overture - Gioachino Rossini ("The Lone Ranger" theme)
• The Barber of Seville - Gioachino Rossini
• Pictures at an Exhibition - Modest Mussorgsky
• Brandenburg Concertos - Johann Sebastian Bach.

In retrospect, a well-performed piece of classical music is like a well-written piece of software. Everything just flows together. Intricate passages combine into something much greater than its constituent parts.

So, fellow Soylentils, what are your favorite classical works? As performances vary in quality and there are many recordings out on the internet, it would be very much appreciated if you included a link to a free (libre) copy if you know of one that you think others would enjoy.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

While both Betteridge's Law and common sense say, "No," Zack Whittaker at ZDNet takes a closer look:

An analysis of the last five-months' worth of monthly software updates shows that Edge had 25 vulnerabilities shared with versions of Internet Explorer, which had a total of 100 vulnerabilities.

Earlier this month on its scheduled Patch Tuesday update offering, Microsoft released MS15-124, a cumulative update for Internet Explorer, and MS15-125, a near-identical patch for Edge. Of the 15 flaws patched in Internet Explorer, 11 of those were also patched in Edge.

According to a Microsoft blog post earlier this year, the software giant's newest browser, an exclusive for Windows 10, is said to have been designed to "defend users from increasingly sophisticated and prevalent attacks."

In doing that, Edge scrapped older, insecure, or flawed plugins or frameworks, like ActiveX or Browser Helper Objects. That already helped to cut a number of possible drive-by attacks traditionally used by attackers. EdgeHTML, which powers Edge's rendering engine, is a fork of Trident, which still powers Internet Explorer.

[...] Older versions of Internet Explorer will be retired by mid-January, giving millions of users about a month to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11, or to Edge on Windows 10.

Original Submission

maxwell demon writes:

As Science alert reports, researches have proven for the first time, that a fundamental problem of quantum mechanics, the problem whether a material has an energy gap, is equivalent to the halting problem, which states there is no way to always determine in finite time whether a given program will ever terminate. It it the first and most well known example of an undecidable problem.

In the words of the scientists, as quoted by the article:

"What we've shown is that the spectral gap is one of these undecidable problems. This means a general method to determine whether matter described by quantum mechanics has a spectral gap, or not, cannot exist. Which limits the extent to which we can predict the behaviour of quantum materials, and potentially even fundamental particle physics." said one of the researchers, Toby Cubitt from University College London in the UK.

So why is this important? To quote the article:

Why are spectral gaps so important? They're a central property of semiconductors, which are crucial components of most electrical circuits, and physicists had hoped that if they'd be able to work out whether a material is superconductive at room temperature (a highly desirable trait) simply by extrapolating from a complete-enough microscopic description.

[More After the Break]

hubie writes:

The Dawn mission arrived at Ceres last Spring and has been slowly spiraling in to its final mapping orbit, which it will reach around December 18.

The asteroid Vesta and the recently categorized dwarf planet Ceres have been selected because, while both speak to conditions and processes early in the formation of the solar system, they developed into two different kinds of bodies. Vesta is a dry, differentiated object with a surface that shows signs of resurfacing. It resembles the rocky bodies of the inner solar system, including Earth. Ceres, by contrast, has a primitive surface containing water-bearing minerals, and may possess a weak atmosphere. It appears to have many similarities to the large icy moons of the outer solar system.

By studying both these two distinct bodies with the same complement of instruments on the same spacecraft, the Dawn mission hopes to compare the different evolutionary path each took as well as create a picture of the early solar system overall. Data returned from the Dawn spacecraft could provide opportunities for significant breakthroughs in our knowledge of how the solar system formed.

To carry out its scientific mission, the Dawn spacecraft will carry three science instruments whose data will be used in combination to characterize these bodies. These instruments consist of a visible camera, a visible and infrared mapping spectrometer, and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer. In addition to these instruments, radiometric and optical navigation data will provide data relating to the gravity field and thus bulk properties and internal structure of the two bodies.

Initial results from the data recorded during its approach and high orbit phases has been published in two papers. The first paper argues that the mysterious bright spots on its surface are salt deposits, but it isn't obvious why the salt is there. The second paper confirms the presence of ammonia bound up in clay materials. Ammonia is typically found out beyond the orbit of Neptune where it condenses more readily, so it is an interesting question why we'd find ammoniated material bound up in the soil so close to the Sun.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Two of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detectors, CMS and ATLAS, have seen excess photon pairs that hint at the existence of a previously unknown boson with a mass of about 1500 GeV [gigaelectronvolt], which is about 12 times larger than the mass of the Higgs boson. The excess photons turned up while searching through data looking for gravitons. By themselves the data are not very significant and would not have garnered much interest, but this becomes more interesting since both experiments saw these statistical bumps in the same place. The next round of data taking in March will be able to determine whether this particle really exists.

In addition to what they might have found, also of interest is what they haven't found:

Meanwhile, searches for particles predicted by supersymmetry, physicists' favourite extension of the standard model, continue to come up empty-handed. To theoretical physicist Michael Peskin of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, the most relevant part of the talks concerned the failure to find a supersymmetric particle called the gluino in the range of possible masses up to 1,600 GeV (much farther than the 1,300-GeV limit of Run 1). This pushes supersymmetry closer to the point where many physicists might give up on it, Peskin says.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.

As these technology giants zero in on the car industry, global automakers are being forced to dramatically rethink what it means to build a vehicle for the first time in a century. Aspects of this race evoke several pivotal moments in technological history: the construction of railroads, the dawn of electric light, the birth of the automobile, the beginning of aviation. There's no precedent for what engineers are trying to build now, and no single blueprint for how to build it.

Self-driving cars promise to create a new kind of leisure, offering passengers additional time for reading books, writing email, knitting, practicing an instrument, cracking open a beer, taking a catnap, and any number of other diversions. Peope who are unable to drive themselves could experience a new kind of independence. And self-driving cars could re-contextualize land-use on massive scales. In this imagined mobility utopia, drone trucks would haul packages across the country and no human would have to circle a city block in search of a parking spot.

If self-driving vehicles deliver on their promises, they will save millions of lives over the course of a few decades, destroy and create entire industries, and fundamentally change the human relationship with space and time. All of which is why some of the planet's most valuable companies are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to build driverless cars.

After automation puts everyone out of work, will anyone need to drive anywhere anymore?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Facebook is testing a new rating and review service, and that has Yelp investors twitchy:

Facebook wants to tell you about local businesses, including ratings and reviews from your friends and others who have taken advantage of their offerings. If you're thinking, "That sounds a lot like Yelp," you're not alone.

Yelp Inc. shares dove as much as 9.2% Tuesday after Search Engine Land detailed Facebook Inc.'s new desktop Services offering, which appeared with no announcement or fanfare from the world's largest social network.

"We're in the early stages of testing a way for people to easily find more Pages for the services they're interested in," a Facebook spokesman said in an email.

The push to direct its more than 1 billion users toward local businesses is nothing new for Facebook, which launched a service called Places in 2010 with a similar aim. The difference now is the amount of data Facebook has after years of allowing users to check in and rate local businesses, a wealth of info that has been hard for other Yelp rivals to amass. "With 50M Facebook Business Pages, and a global monthly active mobile user base of $1.5B+, Facebook represents a formidable competitor for anyone in local, especially given the ~60%+ engagement of mobile daily active users," Yelp bull Darren Aftahl, of Roth Capital Partners, wrote in a note Tuesday, as reported by Barron's.

[More After the Break]

takyon writes:

An unidentified man has been arrested in England in connection with the hack of VTech, a Hong Kong toy maker:

Police in England said they arrested a 21-year-old man on Tuesday in connection with last month's breach of VTech, a Hong Kong electronic toy maker, which exposed personal data for 12 million people, including 6.4 million minors. Hackers also made off with profile photos and chat logs of millions of parents and their children.

British police said they arrested the man, who has not been identified, in Bracknell, a town 32 miles outside of London, for breaking England's Computer Misuse Act, including "unauthorized access" to a computer and data, according to a statement released by Britain's South East Regional Organized Crime Unit.

Last month, VTech said its online database store was compromised by hackers. Among the stolen data were names, email addresses, passwords, profile information, mailing addresses and download histories belonging to parents, as well as names, genders and birth dates of children. The breach was notable for the fact that children's personal information was compromised. Security experts say children are a frequent target for identity thieves because their clean credit histories can be used to apply for government benefits, open bank and credit card accounts and apply for loans.

But the hacker believed to be behind the breach told Vice's Motherboard blog that he did not intend to sell or use the data, but instead to draw publicity to VTech's weak security practices. The hacker told Motherboard that he was able to breach two databases, containing personal data for millions of parents and children, using a simple hacking technique called a SQL injection, in which hackers enter commands that prompt a database to dump its contents.

Previously: Hack of Toy Maker VTech Exposes Families

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

According to security blogger Graham Cluley, some former members of the site are now receiving blackmail demands through the post. The letters ask for thousands of dollars and threaten to out former members if the lucre is not forthcoming.

Ever since the database of Ashley Madison users was displayed online, blackmailers have been quick to try and extort money from members. The swift exposure of high-profile casualties, like former director of the Family Research Council Josh Duggar, who resigned in disgrace after being shown to have multiple accounts with the website, showed there was money to be made.

After the database went online, at least one suicide was linked to the leak.

It later emerged that the whole website was something of a busted flush, with around one per cent of the people on there being women looking for affairs.

Previous Soylent Coverage:
Amazon and GoDaddy Sued for Hosting Leaked Ashley Madison Data
Infidelity Website Hack Leads to Suicides in Canada
Hackers Reportedly Leak Nearly 10 GB of Ashley Madison ("Cheating Site") Files
Adult 'Extracurricular Activity' Website AshleyMadison.com Hacked

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Okay, maybe not everything you know about latency is wrong. But now that I have your attention, we can talk about why the tools and methodologies you use to measure and reason about latency are likely horribly flawed. In fact, they're not just flawed, they're probably lying to your face.

When I went to Strange Loop in September, I attended a workshop called "Understanding Latency and Application Responsiveness" by Gil Tene. Gil is the CTO of Azul Systems, which is most renowned for its C4 pauseless garbage collector and associated Zing Java runtime. While the workshop was four and a half hours long, Gil also gave a 40-minute talk called "How NOT to Measure Latency" which was basically an abbreviated, less interactive version of the workshop. If you ever get the opportunity to see Gil speak or attend his workshop, I recommend you do. At the very least, do yourself a favor and watch one of his recorded talks or find his slide decks online.

The remainder of this [linked] post is primarily a summarization of that talk. You may not get anything out of it that you wouldn't get out of the talk, but I think it can be helpful to absorb some of these ideas in written form. Plus, for my own benefit, writing about them helps solidify it in my head.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

For decades scientists thought that very tiny bubbles released by some human cells were nothing more than biological debris. But a new study with roundworms suggests otherwise.

The bubbles, known as extracellular vesicles (EVs), can have beneficial health effects, like promoting tissue repair, or play a diabolical role and carry disease signals for cancer or neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.

Researchers isolated and profiled cells releasing EVs in adult C. elegans and identified 335 genes that provide significant information about the biology of EVs and their relationship to human diseases.

They found that 10 percent of the 335 identified genes in the roundworm regulate the formation, release, and possible function of the EVs. Understanding how EVs are made, dispersed and communicate with other cells can shed light on the difference between EVs carrying sickness or health.

"These EV's are exciting but scary because we don't know what the mechanisms are that decide what is packaged inside them," says Maureen Barr, lead author and a professor in the genetics department at Rutgers University. "It's like getting a letter in the mail and you don't know whether it's a letter saying that you won the lottery or a letter containing anthrax."

Original study

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

On Monday, NASA officially opened an application window for the next generation of American astronauts it hopes to send to the International Space Station, lunar orbit and eventually to Mars. But to find the best candidates for dealing with the harsh levels of radiation in space and on the Red Planet, the agency may want to consider looking beyond the borders of the United States for applicants.

[...] For years now, scientists have been studying residents of Ramsar, a town in northern Iran that is believed to have the highest levels of naturally occurring background radiation for an inhabited area. Levels up to 80 times the world average (PDF) have been measured in town, yet studies of the few thousand people living in the area show rates of lung cancer are actually below average. In fact, research shows that a gene responsible for the production of white blood cells and so-called "natural killer cells" that attack tumors was more strongly expressed among the population.

[...] there may be no need to engage in controversial "editing" of human genetics to create radiation-resistant astronauts because there might already be good prospects in a few corners of the world.

[...] Besides Ramsar, the beaches near Guarapari, Brazil, also exhibit very high levels of natural radiation. People in Yangjiang, China, live with radiation levels three times the world average but have below-average cancer levels, and the story is the same in Karunagappally, India.

Unfortunately, none of the people from these areas would be eligible for the program NASA is now hiring for -- the agency is only looking for American applicants. So who in the United States might be best suited for withstanding the most cosmic radiation?

Paging residents of Hanford, WA...

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

So it's that time of year again, and I'm pondering gifts for the kids that will teach them Science, Tech, Engineering, Math (STEM) fundamentals without their knowing it. The google searches so far have produced addition flash cards with cartoon characters on them and the like, which is instant tedium. I saw this replica of the Digi Comp at Maker Faire a couple years ago and thought it would fill the bill, but $350 is a big risk to take on something they might only play with for 5 minutes. Have any Soylentils given STEM gifts that really have worked, capturing kids' imaginations and teaching them useful STEM concepts?

[Please indicate a suggested age-range for any gift you suggest. -Ed.]

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers have built neural probes that hold what may be the smallest implantable LEDs ever made.

These new probes can control and record the activity of many individual neurons, measuring how changes in the activity of a single neuron can affect its neighbors.

The team, which has tested the probes in mice, anticipates that experiments using probes based on their design could lead to breakthroughs in understanding and treating neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"This is a very big step forward," says Kensall Wise, professor emeritus of the University of Michigan, who was involved with the research. "The fact that you can generate these optical signals on the probe, in a living brain, opens up new doors."

Original Submission

tt0389722 writes:

Purchasers of the Philips Hue "smart" ambient lighting system are finding out that the new firmware pushed out by the manufacturer has cut off access to previously-supported lightbulbs.

Philips uses ZigBee, which should mean any bulbs compatible with this standard will work with its Hue products. Not anymore. The firmware update removes this support, limiting this "open, global" standard to Philips' own bulbs and those it has designated as "Friends of Hue."

When owners complained that they had been given the old bait-and-switch on products they already paid for, Philips issued this statement:

The Philips Hue is a premium-priced LED lighting system, but the rapid pace of LED efficiency gains has started to leave them behind. Cheaper competitors have started to significantly undercut Hue's pricing. Maybe this lockout is more about pricing protection than it is about quality protection

Original Submission